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Blog posted by: Caroline Bernard, Monday, 22 May 2017.

Homeless Link is delighted to be one of the 21 successful organisations and consortia that were chosen as members of the new Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector (VCSE) Health and Wellbeing Alliance programme.

Funded by the Department of Health (DH), and led by the DH, Public Health England and NHS England – together these are known as the ‘system partners’. This new programme replaces the original Innovation, Excellence and Strategic Development (IESD) programme that was revamped in 2016 following the VCSE Review.

About the Health and Wellbeing Alliance

The Alliance will work as a one-year pilot, members will be able to shape the project and be involved in the evaluation of the overall programme. The DH is procuring an independent evaluator, with whom each Alliance member will be expected to work closely.

Members have already begun to develop the Terms of Reference of the programme at its first ‘working day’, which took place in London on 19 May. The members will also work with system partners to agree on the ways in which we will work, and the focus of the work. The Alliance will also facilitate a wider conversation by way of the networks, which its members bring.

Impact of pre-election period

Clearly, the calling of the General Election has meant that some aspects of the work have had to be put on hold, pending appointment of new ministers. Policy priorities and work assessment are also on hold, alongside the Health and Wellbeing Fund. Although on the latter, system partners are looking at criteria and doing as much as they can during the pre-election period to keep this moving forward.

Core and additional work

The core work, funded by the baseline allocation, which each member is awarded with initially, will vary for each member, but includes: cascading key health and public health announcements to our networks, gathering intelligence from the sector, sharing evidence and supporting new policy development work. Each member will work to ‘live objectives’ that can flex and respond to needs accordingly. Additional work will be identified throughout the year, and relevant Alliance members will be able to bid to deliver these pieces of work.

Role of Alliance members

There are several aspects to the role of Alliance members; one key aspect of the role is that members will act as Ambassadors for the programme and make use of their wide networks to promote it to their sectors. Members began to co-produce the Terms of Reference at the 19 May meeting, and will be participating in a range of regular webinars and meetings. Each member will work with a key contact system partner – Homeless Link’s system partner is Public Health England. There will be a monthly newsletter for us to share with our networks, so watch this space for the first one when it is published.